


La Danse Macabre

by sherleigh



Series: Halloween Fic [2]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:05:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherleigh/pseuds/sherleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange things are afoot in the SHINee dorm</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Danse Macabre

**Description**

 

Halloween fic: Strange things are afoot in the SHINee dorm.

 

**Prologue**

Having the dorm to himself is a rare treat, and Taemin intends to enjoy it to its fullest. He pops Korn’s concert DVD into the player in the hall and turns the volume up loud enough that the music can be heard in every corner of the flat. He ‘borrows’ one of Key’s overly baggy t-shirts and wears only that, and ties his hair in the apple hairstyle that he normally avoids because it causes the rest of the members to lose their sanity and coo over him like he’s a baby sparrow that fell out of its nest.

 

The next order of business is fixing himself a meal; now that the managers are not here, he can indulge in something carb-heavy, or sugar loaded. There is a tub of Haagen-Dazs hidden in a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer, and he can take it secure in the knowledge that its owner would not be able to complain of its loss without giving away his own contravention of the dorm rules.

 

Just as he’s about to stick a spoon into the strawberry cheesecake flavoured ice-cream – it’s probably Minho’s, since he likes cheesecake – there is a loud crash from the hall.

 

Taemin dithers for a moment, wondering whether to hide the ice-cream before investigating, and places the tub in the sink. The hallway is empty, but one of the speakers is lying on the floor. Now that his mind is not on ice-cream, Taemin realises that the music is a bit too loud, and concludes that the force of the vibrations must have caused the speaker to topple. 

 

Grabbing the remote, he hits the volume down button.

 

Nothing happens. Shut Up blasts from both speakers undimmed.

 

Irritably, Taemin smacks the remote a few times. They’ve had this particular home entertainment set for two years now, and the various remotes have gotten a bit rusty. He tries again.

 

Still nothing.

 

Giving up on the remote, he crouches before the player and tries to locate the machine that controls the speakers. Minho has taught him many times before how to play around with the different speakers they have, as well as the name of the black box, but he cannot seem to remember it.

 

He turns the volume dial down low.

 

The music blares so loud that Taemin falls on his arse in shock, and he scrambles to turn the dial the other way around.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

He hits the power button on the DVD player. The flashing blue light blinks off, but the music still plays. The fallen speaker is bounces lightly where it lies on the floor, as if the music has given it life.

 

It is this final thought that causes Taemin to back away from the electronics. Spirits are known to use electronic devices to communicate, and it would explain why the entertainment system is suddenly malfunctioning. A part of him scoffs at the idea, because they’ve lived here for three years and no one has had any strange experiences and because it’s just like him to panic over an electrical short while being at home alone, but another part of him wonders whether the rosary beads around his wrist can protect him from angry spirits.

A loud thumping noise makes him jump.

 

It takes a little while before Taemin realises that someone is banging on the door, and the security camera reveals a middle-aged man and woman wearing displeased expressions. They looks vaguely familiar, so he guesses that it’s safe to speak to them.

 

When he opens the door, the woman yells at him. He doesn’t really blame her, because she has to yell to be heard over the din coming out of their flat.

 

“Can you turn that thing down?” she asks. “My children have to study, and we can barely hear ourselves in our own house.”

 

She must be their neighbour. He sort of remembers seeing a couple of school-aged children on their floor before.

 

“I’m sorry, ahjumma, but I don’t know how,” he says. “The remote isn’t working.”

 

“Shall I take a look at it?” the husband asks.

 

“Yes, please, and thank you,” he replies, bowing slightly and stepping aside. He’s grateful for the help, and truth be told, rather relieved that he’s not alone anymore.

 

The man steps in, shaking his head at the fallen speaker, and picks the remote from the couch and gives it a hard smack with the flat of his palm. When he presses the power button, the player obeys.

 

The silence that falls in the flat is almost as oppressive as the noise, and Taemin finds that his ears are ringing slightly. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

 

“I tried that too, but it didn’t work.”

 

The man snorts. “Are you a girl or a boy? You need to eat some more to get strength.”

 

The remark stings, of course, but he’s still grateful. He closes the door behind them, shaking his head at his own gullibility. All it took was one malfunctioning remote for him to lose all ability to reason and to start fearing the supernatural. No wonder the managers were so afraid of leaving him alone.  

 

All the same, he decides to watch the latest episode of Medical Top Team on his laptop instead of the television.

 

**Chapter 1: Bide within the Rede ye must, in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust**

 

“Has anyone seen my phone?”

 

His question is greeted with a groan from Minho and complete apathy by the rest. Their manager rolls his eyes and makes a quick escape into the bathroom.

 

Jonghyun is eating breakfast and Onew is still half-asleep, so he decides to try his luck with Key. “Key-hyung, do you remember when you last saw my phone?”

 

Key continues texting on his own phone, and sighs. “Have you tried looking on top of your nightstand? Inside it? And under the bed?”

 

He’s tried the first two, so he heads back into the room he shares with Jonghyun. The idea of looking under the bed makes him slightly uneasy, but he dismisses it as silliness and gets down on his knees. The phone is there, and although it feels cold despite them not having the air-conditioning on last night, Taemin is too happy to give it much thought.

 

~

 

Onew catches him chucking his dr. dre headphones into the bin and asks “What the fuck?”

 

“They’re spoiled.” They are. He’s tried using them on his laptop, his phone and on Key’s Ipad, and each time he does there’s a slight hiss in the background. “There’s this background noise. I must have dropped them or something.”

 

“That’s the ones your fanclub sent you for your birthday, right?”

 

He nods, and Onew sighs. “Can’t you be more careful with your stuff? I know you gets lots of things from your fanclubs, but they aren’t going to be around forever. What are you going to do when you haven’t got four or five spare sets just lying around?”

 

~

 

This is the fifth round, and Taemin cannot decide whether to throw the stupid, malfunctioning controller across the room or into Minho’s smug face.

 

Minho’s player scores another goal while his defender runs around in circles, and Taemin drops the controller with a curse. “Fuck this game.”

 

“Sore loser,” Minho laughs. “I’ll let you win the next one.”

 

“Yeah, right.”

 

“Are you okay?” Minho’s tone is more serious now, although his eyes are fixed on the screen. “I mean, is there anything you want to talk about?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I don’t know, you seemed a bit off. It’s not usually this easy to beat you.”

 

Taemin growls. “There’s nothing wrong with me, the controller is funny. Look, when I try to make my striker run, he goes off in the opposite direction.”

 

Minho takes the controller from him and tries the same move. The avatar moves perfectly obediently as Minho puts him through his paces, and he hands the controller back with a frown. “It feels fine to me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

“I told you I’m fine,” Taemin yells, and stalks off to his room. “I’m going to sleep.”

 

~

 

The tinkling of shattered glass shocks Taemin from his morning daze, and he turns around to see a smashed cereal bowl on the floor next to him. He had noticed it sitting on the counter as he walked past to get eggs from the fridge, but it wasn’t close enough to the edge to have toppled off by itself.

 

Seconds later, Key runs into the kitchen, his hair still messy and uncombed. His eyes flick left and right as he takes stock of the situation, and his face pinches in irritation. “Can’t you learn to be more careful?”

 

“I didn’t-”

 

“Move aside,” Key instructs, and takes dustpan out from the side cupboard. Using paper towels to shield his hand, he sweeps the shards into the dustpan and discards them in the bin. “Look, don’t use glassware in the morning, okay?”

 

“Hyung, I didn’t do it.”

 

“What, it grew legs and walked, did it?”

 

He hates being talked to like a child. “No, but I didn’t touch the bowl. It was on the counter, I came to take an egg and when I turned my back it fell.”

 

Key rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure. If you didn’t drop it, who did? A ghost?”

 

~ 

 

Key’s offhand remark follows Taemin throughout the day; it sits in the back of his mind as he’s dancing and makes him trip over his own feet. It replays itself as he’s singing, making him stumble over words he knows well enough to sing in his sleep.

 

When they get back to the dorm at half past midnight, Taemin finds himself afraid to step through the door. He hesitates at the threshold, and Jonghyun walks into his back.

 

“Oi, move,” he scowls, shoving Taemin inside the dorm, but then his expression softens. “Are you okay?”

 

“I…” he wants to say that he’s fine, but how he isn’t. How do you explain to another person that you’re afraid that the house you’ve lived in for years may suddenly be haunted, when you can’t entirely believe it yourself? He shrugs instead.

 

Jonghyun puts an arm, solid and comforting, around his shoulders and drags him towards their shared bedroom – which is shared only in name, since Jonghun and Key have the habit of falling asleep together on the couch with the television on – as the others head off in various directions.

 

“Don’t stress too much about the comeback. We’ll do fine,” Jonghyun assures him. “Do you want some ice-cream? I’ve got some hidden somewhere.”

 

Taemin wants to laugh then, because that secret ice-cream doesn’t exist anymore, but the mention of it brings back the memory of the out-of-control speakers that night and the noise Taemin makes doesn’t sound anything like laughter.

 

“Taemin?”

 

“Are you sleepy? Are you going to sleep tonight or are you going to compose?”

 

Jonghyun shrugs. “I don’t know. What does that have to do with anything?”

 

“Can you stay inside the room tonight? With me?”

 

Jonghyun looks concerned, but he just nods. “Sure.” A cheeky grin crosses his face. “You know, this sounds like the beginning of a badly-written slash fic.”

 

He rolls his eyes, but then something occurs to him. “The fans, do they only write slash fics? I mean, do they write other things?”

 

“Yes. There’s fluffy stuff, like banana milk things, and humour and horror. You wouldn’t believe the things they can come up with. Sometimes I wish I had enough free time to write fanfiction about idols.”

 

“Horror? Like, do they kill us?”

Jonghyun laughs. “Trust me, death is not the worst thing to happen to us.”

 

**Chapter 2: Live ye must and let to live, fairly take and fairly give**

 

When Taemin wakes up in the morning, his phone is floating in the air towards him.

 

All traces of sleep flee, and his body seizes in utter, blinding fear. In the bed across the room, Jonghyun’s peacefully sleeping face taunts him. The phone moves closer, at face height, and Taemin fights to open his jaw to scream, but the muscles in his throat are constricted and the only sound he manages to make is a croak that sounds pathetic even to his own ears.

 

Taemin scrambles backwards on his bed until his back hits the wall, and tries again. This time he manages to half-yell “Ma…umma! Hyung!”

 

Jonghyun jumps. The phone falls to the bed.

 

“Buh-what?”

 

“HYUNG!”

 

“What?” Jonghyun wraps his sheets around his waist and walks over to him, and in the dim light, he can see worry creasing his hyung’s face. “What’s wrong?”

 

“My phone floated!” he cries out, pointing to the demonic thing where it lies in his sheets. “Towards me!”

 

Jonghyun blinks and picks the phone up. “Your phone floated?”

 

It sounds absurd.

 

“Um…”

 

“You must have been dreaming,” Jonghyun says, sounding so patient even though he must be annoyed at being woken up for so trivial a reason. “Go back to sleep.”

 

What he says makes perfect sense, and Taemin finds himself doubting what he saw. He always sleeps with his phone in his bed, and that is where it had been when Jonghyun woke up. Maybe he was dreaming.

 

Jonghyun moves to put the phone on his nightstand, and Taemin is hit with the sudden certainty that the phone cannot be in the same room as him. He catches Jonghyun’s arm, and pulls lightly.

 

“Put it outside.”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t want the phone inside the room. Hyung, please.” Taemin jumps from the bed, uncaring that he’s naked and it’s cold; all he knows is that he needs to get rid of everything electronic in the room. He gathers his other phone, his various MP3 players and earphones, his laptop, even the little Tamagochi that is the relic of his primary school days and drops the whole lot in Jonghyun’s arms. “Take it all away.”

 

If Jonghyun is puzzled, he doesn’t say anything. Taemin watches him trudge out of the door, holding his sheet up by pinching it between his waist and elbow, and doesn’t breathe until he walks back in and closes the door behind them. A warm hand runs through his hair, and Taemin leans into the touch, embarrassed.

 

~

Taemin wakes up before everybody else and finds that Jonghyun had placed all of his electronics on the dining table. Taemin leaves his phone on the table and puts everything away into a large box, which he then hides in a cupboard. If this thing, if there is a thing at all, intends to haunt him through electronics, he won’t use them anymore. It doesn’t seem to act up in front of the other members, so all he has to do is not use his phone when he’s alone.

 

~

 

They’re riding in the van on the way to a pre-recording of a radio show when the manager reminds him that he’s supposed to sing a bit of Depression Clock with Jonghyun. He cannot even remember what the song sounds like, so Onew lends him his Ipod.

 

The song sounds easy enough to sing, and Taemin replays it, trying to catch the lyrics. He scolds himself as he mouths along to the words, for being so overwhelmed by a little bit of silliness that he forgot about being allowed to lead a duet with Jonghyun.

 

A scream interrupts his thoughts.

 

Taemin jumps so high he hits his head on the roof of the car, and yanks the earphones from his ears. His heart is racing so fast that he doesn’t register Jonghyun’s laughter from in front of him.

 

“-it’s not that bad.”

 

With trepidation, he puts one earphone back into his ear. IU sings about eating ramyeon, but there is another voice wailing in the background. With trembling fingers, he turns the Ipod off, and listens in horror as the wail tapers into a moan, before a mumbling voice speaks nonsense words over static.

 

Before he can register what he’s doing, Taemin rolls his window down and flings the Ipod out onto the road.

 

Onew is texting on his phone, so he doesn’t notice the death of his Ipod, but Key does. His jaw drops for a moment, and then he yells “Hey, what the hell was that?”

 

 When he doesn’t answer, Key turns to Onew. “Hey, old man, Taemin just threw your Ipod out of the car.”

 

Onew looks up, shocked. “You…what?”

 

How does he defend himself against this? How can he explain that he’s being haunted?

 

“I…I heard a voice.”

 

Even Minho, in the front seat, has turned around to watch the drama unfold. “A voice?”

 

“There was someone talking over the song.”

 

Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “That was me. I know I don’t normally sing like that, but can everybody stop overreacting?”

 

“I know your voice!” Taemin tears at his hair in frustration. “It…there was screaming in the background, okay.”

 

It is Jonghyun who drives the first nail into the coffin of his reputation. “Is this related to last night?”

 

“What happened last night?”

 

“Taemin freaked out. He thought his phone was attacking him, and he made me take his stuff out of the room.”

 

Key’s eyes soften slightly, and Taemin hates the maternal pity he sees in there. If it were you, he thinks, you stupid fat-faced queen, you’d have thrown yourself out of the van.

 

“I…maybe it’s some lost spirit.”

 

“That’s enough. Spirits don’t haunt Ipods,” the manager says. “Now can we concentrate on the duet? Maybe Taemin should practice with Jjong now, and the rest can provide feedback.”

 

~

 

He waits until the stylist is adding finishing touches to his hair with the straightening iron to text his mother; he tells her that he’s going to buy a new phone because the current one is malfunctioning, and that she can always call one of his hyungs or managers if she wants to reach him. Taemin doubts he will be spending much time alone for a long while.

 

He sends the same message to a few close friends. When they leave for the stage, he drops the phone in the wastebasket, and sends a prayer heavenwards that he never sees it again.

 

~

 

When he pulls up in the driveway of his family home, Taemin feels the tension ease from his shoulders. His mother has made black pepper beef udon, and he eats quietly at the table while she converses with Taesun about courses and extra-curricular activities.

“Are you alright, Min-ah?” she asks, cupping his cheek. “You look a bit pale. Are you eating enough?”

 

“Neh, umma.” He thinks for a moment, and asks “If I want to move back here, is it okay?”

 

“Of course, but what’s wrong? Did you argue with one of your hyungs?”

 

He shakes his head. “No, it’s just too stressful sometimes. I feel more relaxed here. I think I’ll move my stuff here tomorrow.”

 

That night, he dreams of fire and blood. His house burns, his mother screams and his family are crucified. The same voice he heard on Onew's Ipod continues talking and wailing in the background, providing a bone-chilling soundtrack to the massacre he's made to witness.

 

Taemin gets the message loud and clear.

 

In the morning, he tells his mother that he’s changed his mind about moving back. She chides him for not being able to make up his mind, but there is still worry in her eyes. Taemin longs to tell her everything, about how he's half convinced that there is an evil spirit following him around and half-convinced that he's slowly becoming psychotic. Before he leaves, he hugs her tightly, and tries to commit the scent of her perfume to memory. He doesn't know whether he'll see her again.

 

He returns to Gangnam, and walks into the dorm feeling like Jesus walking into the garden of Gethsemane.

 

 

 

**Chapter 3: For tread the Circle thrice about to keep unwelcome spirits out**

 

You do not become an internationally famous idol at fourteen by rolling over and giving up at the slightest obstacle.

 

Trying to ignore the withdrawal he’s feeling from not being able to go online, Taemin heads to the library to look at books on the occult. He stays within sight of the young librarian at all times, and she starts grinning shyly when she thinks he’s flirting with her, but the truth is that she could be a pee-soaked drug addict and he’d still act the same way. His comfort zone has diminished greatly.

 

~

 

_Rosemary, St. John’s wort and vervain._

 

He makes four little white bundles of these herbs, and puts one in each room.

 

_Bay, mugwort, yarrow, rosemary, sage, angelica and juniper._

 

He burns these in his room and lets the smoke wash over him.

 

_Agate._

 

He buys a crucifix carved out of agate, and slips it over his neck.

 

_Black obsidian._

 

He finds an earring with the powerful protective agent, and uses it in his helix piercing.

 

_White jade._

 

 He buys a handful of white jade crystals and scatters the little stones around the dorm; tucks little shards under all of their beds and into every little nook and cranny he can get them into.

 

Key notices his funny scent. Jonghyun grumbles about his bedpsrings poking him in the back. Minho steps on a white jade shard and treats his foot without a single thought about the thing that caused his injury.

 

Only Onew makes the connection between his fashion choices and the occult. Taemin finds himself pulled aside later that day, and their leader addresses him with concern.

 

“Taemin-ah, do you know what you’re doing? It’s dangerous to dabble in these things without proper knowledge. I think you’re only going to make the situation worse.”

 

“You believe me?” Taemin feels his knees weaken. It is as if, by having them acknowledged by someone, his problems have become real. “You believe that I’m…”

 

Onew shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t think you’d be this desperate you weren’t truly, deeply afraid of something. You’re not the sort of person who throws an Ipod from a car on a whim.”

 

Taemin slides to the floor, and buries his head in his hands. “I just don’t know, hyung. I don’t know what I’m not crazy, or that I’m imagining these things. One of the girls in my year had a psychotic breakdown, and she believed that she was being possessed by angry spirits. She saw a psychiatrist and started taking pills, and stopped thinking those things. How do I know that I’m not different from her?”

 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Onew says, and sits next to him. “Just, be careful, alright? And whatever funny thing happens after this, come to me. I’ll believe you.”

 

Tears of gratitude prick his eyes, and Taemin cuddles into Onew’s side so that the elder won’t see them fall. “Thank you, hyung.”

 

~

 

He wakes up in the middle of the night.

 

Nothing strange seems to be afoot. The oppressive atmosphere that he had been waking up to the past week seems to have cleared. The scent of rosemary and juniper hang lightly in the air.

 

An odd sound startles him, but before Taemin can panic, he realises that it is the sound of Key’s voice. A quick look over confirms that Jonghyun’s bed is empty. It takes less than a minute of him to decide to dress and join his hyungs in whatever they are doing.

 

Key and Jonghyun look a bit surprised when Taemin pads into the hall. The television is on, and they are both nursing bowls of ramyeon.

 

“What’s wrong?” Key asks. “Nightmare?”

 

“No, but I can’t sleep. Can I join you?”

 

In response, Key pats the couch on his right, indicating that Taemin can sit there. He would have preferred to be in between them, but he’ll take what he can get at this point.

 

They watch the second Lord of the Rings movie, in English and without subtitles because Key insists that they block his view. Or rather, Taemin watches the Lord of the Rings, Key uses the movie as a guide to English pronunciation and Jonghyun watches Key. When Key throws an arm around his shoulder and pulls him closer, Taemin snuggles into his side; Key is warm and alive, and the fear he feels slowly ebbs away.

 

When Gandalf leads the exiled horse-riders down the slope, glowing brilliantly against the dark and grimy background, Taemin looks up to find his hyungs asleep. Jonghyun’s head rests on Key’s other shoulder, and Key’s nose whistles a little bit when he breathes out because of his rhinitis. They look cute together, and Taemin wonders, not for the first time, whether they are dating.

 

He’s this close to falling asleep too, lulled by the soothing background music, when an odd sound catches his attention. It sounds like something is scratching the wooden floor, a scritch-scritch kind of sound. At any time before this, Taemin would have blamed the noise on a rat. Now, he clutches his necklace and prays that it is a rat.

 

Slowly dislodging Key’s arm, he mutters the words of banishment he learnt in the library.

 

“Minions of dark now quit this place, for only light will I embrace. In the name of the Lord I bid thee part, that I may consecrate and clear this space.”

 

He feels absurd whispering the words, but as he says them a chill runs down his spine. Key shifts in his sleep, and curls closer to Jonghyun. The flat is silent once more.

 

Then, he notices something weird about the shadows cast by the light from the television. They shift on the floor and on the walls independently, almost as if they are alive. Taemin sucks a breath in and draws his legs up on the couch, careful not to let any part of his body fall within the shadows. He repeats the invocation, louder, uncaring who hears him.

 

“Minions of dark now quit this place, for only light will I embrace. In the name of the Lord I bid thee part, that I may consecrate and clear this space.”

 

The lights flicker and the scratching noise amplifies until Taemin can almost feel little claws digging into his skin the way they would into the wooden flooring. The shadows peel away from the wall and floor and lunge towards him, from atop and below, and Taemin screams as they close over him.

 

Jonghyun and Key leap up from where they are sleeping. The shadows disappear, leaving only the flickering of the credits rolling on the television. Taemin stays curled in a ball, still feeling the suffocating darkness around him. Hands – Key’s hands – shake him and his umma-hyung calls his name.

 

Then someone flips the lights on and the darkness is gone.

 

“Taemin-ah, please,” Key begs, and Taemin uncurls himself.

 

“What happened?” Jonghyun asks, hovering over them. “It was another nightmare, wasn’t it?”

 

“It’s not a nightmare,” Taemin protests. “There is something here.”

 

“Something?” Key looks puzzled. “Like, a ghost?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The conviction in his voice surprises him, because Taemin is nowhere near as sure as he sounds. He wonders whether he should see a psychiatrist too, but the idea of being confined in a mental health facility, straitjacketed and at the mercy of whatever being is tormenting him, makes him dismiss that course of action.

 

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

 

“Whoa, wait,” Jonghyun says. “That’s the sort of thing that angers them.”

 

Key’s incredulity would have been funny if Taemin weren’t in this situation. “Chinchaa? Go away, you’re making things worse. We shouldn’t have watched that movie, full of orcs and forest spirits and shit.”

 

“The Lord of the Rings isn’t a scary movie,” Taemin protests. “Stop bickering.”

 

Jonghyun rubs his eyes and checks the time on the television. “It’s four. Fucking hell. The manager is picking us up at six, isn’t he?”

 

“Half past five. We’re supposed to be at SM by six.”

 

“I’m going to shower.” Jonghyun sighs. “Look, Taemin, I’m not saying that I believe you or that I don’t, but we’ve stayed here for ages and nothing funny or untoward has happened. Jinki’s bathroom ghost thing was at the earlier dorm. And, as far as I know anyway, you haven’t been creeping around in cemeteries or killing people in traffic accidents, so there’s really no reason for you to be haunted.”

 

I know, Taemin thinks. That’s what’s so unfair about this. “Are you calling me crazy?”

 

“Yes.” Key crosses his arms, and there is no trace of humour in his face. “This is going to affect our work, our comeback. We’ve all worked so hard, so don’t ruin this with some crazy superstitious belief. Besides, I thought you Catholics don’t believe in spirits and whatnot.”

 

For a religion that purports not to believe in spirits, Taemin thinks, we sure have a lot of exorcists.

 

Taemin just nods, and follows Jonghyun into the room to escape Key’s disapproving glare. The elder’s scepticism, as well as his callous attitude towards Taemin’s situation, hurt more than Taemin would have thought.

 

“Can I borrow your laptop?”

 

Jonghyun strips of his top, and says “Use your own.”

 

“It’s not here. Please? I promise not to harm it in any way.”

 

“Fine. Take it.”

 

Taemin takes the laptop, and follows Jonghyun into the bathroom. The lead singer startles when he notices Taemin there with him, balancing the laptop in one hand. “What now?”

 

“I’m going to use it in here.” He cuts off Jonghyun’s protest by speaking over him “And you’re going to use the shower stall, so it’s not like the laptop wil get wet and it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked anyway and I’ll be quiet so it won’t even feel like I’m there.”

 

“This better not be some elaborate prank to upload some video of me naked.”

 

“I wish it were.”

 

~

 

Their rehearsals go horribly wrong. Jonghyun and Key are both exhausted. Taemin is even more tired than they are, and he’s too busy watching the unnatural shadows that follow him all over the place, so they all make numerous mistakes and get irritable at each other. To make matters worse, they are practicing in costume, so Taemin is forced to remove his agate necklace and obsidian earring. He feels naked without them, until Onew slips both items into his jeans pocket.

 

“You just have to have them on you,” he says. “I don’t think you actually need to wear them.”

 

He gives him another stone too; green and ringed. “It’s malachite, for psychic clarity. I hope it helps.”

 

During the break, Taemin follows the manager to the bathroom. The older man seems to think that Taemin is looking for words of encouragement, so he says something about how the hard work will all pay off. Taemin listens dumbly, his concentration focused on the shadow cast by the fluorescent light overhead. Is it moving? Is this a bad shadow or a normal one?

 

He walks out to find his four bandmates huddled in a corner, and their conversation ceases when they see him. It is no surprise that they are talking about him. Crazy maknae, afraid of his own shadow, his own phone, his own dorm. Crazy Catholic-only-in-name maknae, discarding years of fervent belief for cheap horror movie demons.

 

When they start again, he grits his teeth and dances like this was his last chance. He had fought so hard to be here, and he isn’t going to lose it all without a fight. It seems to work. The shadows retreat slightly, and after a while he becomes so lost in the fluid movement of his limbs that he forgets everything else.

 

~

 

“Taemin-ah, can you get me a jacket?” Minho asks from the foyer. He’s going to the gym with Jonghyun, despite their gruelling routine earlier, and the tank top he’s wearing is no protection against the autumn wind.

 

On any other day, Taemin would have kicked his heels and told Minho to get it himself, but today he obeys. He’s caused them enough trouble for one day. There are jackets hanging behind the door, but they all belong to Key, and Taemin remembers that Minho keeps all of his clothes in the closet because Key tends to steal them otherwise.

 

In his preoccupation with finding a proper jacket, Taemin fails to notice that the room is surprisingly free of its usual clutter. He fails to notice the disappearance of Key’s scented candle collection, just as he fails to notice that Minho’s dartboard and darts are not in their usual place on the wall. He fails to notice that the window has been locked from the outside until the door clicks shut behind him.

 

**Chapter 4: To bind the spell well every time, let the spell be said in rhyme**

 

When he tries to open the door, he finds that it is locked.

 

“Minho!” he calls. “Minho, there’s something wrong with the door.”

 

Jonghyun’s voice answers him. “Taemin-ah, we’ve talked and this is for the best.”

 

It takes a moment for the reality to sink in. His bandmates have locked him in here.

 

“You need to get over your fear, and the best way to do that is to face it. We’re going to turn the lights off in a while, and then you’ll see that there’s really nothing to be afraid of.”

 

Taemin laughs. He laughs like he hasn’t in ages, with his head thrown back and tears running down his cheeks, until his laughter turns into sobbing. He’s a dead man, and in trying to help him, his bandmates have sealed his doom.

 

Onew speaks after he’s calmed down a bit. “We’ll see you in the morning, okay? You’re going to be fine, nothing’s going to happen to you. I know we seem cruel right now, but we’re doing this for your own good.”

 

“I thought you believed me.”

 

“I believe you’re scared, but I think it’s just…a creature of your mind. I thought the stones would help you find peace of mind, but they clearly did not.”

 

And then Minho. “Don’t worry, there aren’t any bugs in there – I checked. Taemin-ah fighting!”

 

He waits for Key to say something, but the band’s most opiniated member either has nothing to say, or doesn’t think he needs to say anything. A moment later, the lights go off.

 

~

 

The shadows return. If the room had been plunged into total darkness, Taemin would not have been so worried, because there are no shadows in the dark. Instead, someone in their infinite wisdom has seen fit to remove the curtains from the windows, and light shines in from the outside to cast sinister shadows on the floor.

 

Taemin slips a white packet from his pocket, wondering where he’s finding the courage to try and fight the shadows when it feels like he’s two heartbeats away from fainting. Inside the packet is grave dirt, which he collected after leaving his parents’ house. He spreads the dirt under the windowsill and at the door, drawing lines which evil spirits cannot cross, or so he hopes.

 

It has an interesting effect. The shadows separate from the window, from the light from which they spawn, and slide across the wall and floor like living beings. They dance around him, and Taemin climbs onto Key’s bed. Key is particular about his sleep, and he’s positioned his bed so that the part where he lays his head is shrouded in complete, total darkness. Taemin sits there, cross-legged, and watches the shadows melt into the dark each time they come close to him. They can’t touch him, so they circle the darkness, waiting for him to come to them.

 

~

 

Time passes. Taemin half-wishes he has something to occupy himself with, like his phone, or at least a watch so that he knows how long he has to wait until the dawn comes. A part of him wonders what it is the shadows want from him, and whether he should step outside of his fort to see just what they can do to him; but these are only the wanderings of an idle mind. He’s not some stupid bimbo in a horror movie, after all, Taemin thinks. Not at all.

 

Just when he starts to believe that he might actually survive the night, the window rattles. Taemin nearly jumps from his safe spot in fright, and the shadows around him vibrate angrily, as if sensing a lost opportunity.

 

The window rattles once, and then again, and Taemin looks around the room desperately for something that is both within his reach and can be used as a weapon. There is none.

 

Each second drags by, longer than the next, until the window flies open. Taemin wants to stand, but his legs are no longer listening to his throughts. A hand comes through the window, pale and graceful, and strong fingers grip the ledge, just barely grazing the grave dirt boundary.

 

A thousand thoughts spark in his mind, each one taking off on its own tangent at the same time; he rules out zombies at the same time he moves eldritch spirits to the top of the list. He recalls stories about kitsune and pontianak and just-myself-too, and wonders whether someone recently died an unhappy death in this apartment complex.

 

“Yah, Lee Taemin, can you at least give me a hand?”

 

Key’s voice snaps him from his thoughts.

 

His fear pulls away, and Taemin steps out of his safe place. The shadows lick at his heels, but their movements seem less unnatural now. Key’s head appears at the window, and he struggles to hoist himself up on the ledge; his once-famed upper body strength had gone out of the window after he started dieting.

 

Taemin reaches outside the window and grabs the back of his jacket to pull him in, and Key manages to get his knees onto the ledge.

 

“Why is the window sill so rough?” he complains, looking down at his knees. Taemin’s eyes follow Key’s view, and suddenly feels a jolt of fear completely unrelated to supernatural things. Key’s white-jeaned knee is sitting right on top of the grave dirt. Taemin vaguely remembers Key telling Jonghyun off earlier for putting his ‘ink-stained paws’ on his white Balmain jeans, and figures that he’s dead if Key finds out that Taemin’s managed to sully his expensive jeans with grave dirt.

 

Before Key can touch the dirt himself, Taemin brushes it off his knee and the windowsill. “Some dust,” he says, hoping that will mollify his extremely fussy hyung.

 

“Dust? In my room?”

 

Taemin abandons the mollifying strategy for a let’s-change-the-subject approach. “What are you doing here?”

 

Key sighs, and hauls himself in. “I think you’re overreacting. I don’t think you actually believe in ghosts, and this is all happening because you’ve somehow spooked yourself into seeing things which aren’t there.”

 

Indignant, Taemin starts to protest, but Key stops him with an upheld hand. “But, I don’t think _this_ is the way to handle it. It’s a bit cruel, like locking a baby in a room when it starts crying. Unfortunately, I was outvoted.”

 

“I’m not a baby.”

 

Key laughs a little, and sits down on the floor. Taemin watches with horror as the shadows swirl dangerously around both him and Key, but his hyung doesn’t notice the shadows. Or maybe Taemin really is crazy, and the shadows are perfectly normal. Either way, he returns to his safe corner on the bed.

 

“I know all of the other hyungs have asked you whether you want to talk,” Key says. “And I’m asking you now; is something wrong? Did you see anything violent or frightening? Is someone threatening you? Are you stressed?”

 

“I wish it were one of those things.” Taemin hugs Key’s pillow to his chest, and wishes the older boy would come and sit next to him. “It started with the glass bowl. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t knock it off the counter.”

 

A look of surprise crosses Key’s face, but he doesn’t say anything.

 

“Then I woke up at night to find my phone floating towards me, and it felt like I was going to die if it touched me. Like, I could feel myself knowing this. And then there was screaming in Jinki-hyung’s Ipod, even though I switched it off, and last night the shadows started moving and they’re still moving now, even around you, but you don’t seem to see it and I honestly don’t know if I’m going crazy.”

 

“Do you want to see a doctor? I mean, one of my friends is a psychiatrist. We can go and see him without getting the company involved, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

 

“I don’t want to be crazy.”

 

Key comes to sit beside him. “Nobody wants to be menta-I mean, unwell. But you can’t let your prejudices and preconceptions stop you from getting the help you need.”

 

His hyung’s advice is sound, and Taemin squeezes the pillow, wondering whether his inability to admit that he might be seeing things that don’t exist is a symptom of a mental defect. In the periphery of his vision, the shadows dance still, as if waiting for the coast to clear to continue their assault on him.

 

“Are you watching the shadows again?”

 

It still amazes him, how sharp Key is. “Neh.”

 

“Are you sitting where my pillows should be because there are no shadows there?”

 

“Mmm.”

Key holds his hand out. “Come here.”

 

Even if Taemin wants to, which he most certainly does not, he could not have detached himself from his safe spot. “No, thanks, I’ll just stay here.”

 

Instead of being scolded, as he expects, a look of sympathy crosses Key’s face. He pushes himself off the bed, and steps into a particularly large shadow. Taemin watches, fascinated and terrified, as the shadow curls around Key maliciously, but the elder doesn’t seem to notice.

 

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he proclaims, waving his arms about in the air. “Spirits are stupid, and whatever supernatural thing that most certainly does not exist and which is most certainly not in this room can go and fuck itself.”

 

And then he understands what Key is doing; it makes him angry, at first, because Key doesn’t have a clue what he’s calling on himself. He hasn’t spent the past few days fearing for his life and his sanity.

 

“Hyung, stop.”

 

Key shakes his head. “Oy, spirit, fairy, whatever it is you are, you can bugger off now. Taemin’s far too thick to get whatever message it is you’re trying to communicate from the afterlife, and I’ve got to question your intelligence for picking him in the first place.”

 

“Stop.”

 

Key turns to face him, and his eyes bore into Taemin’s soul. “Are you afraid of being hurt by whatever is out here, or are you more afraid of finding out that there’s actually nothing here?”

 

Taemin does not want to be sick.

He takes a hesitant step forward, and although the shadows roil around him, nothing actually happens. Each step away from the safety of Key’s bed is a fight; his head is screaming at him to run away, but he can’t. The demons he fears are the ones within him, he realises, in that it’s easier to believe that he’s being haunted than it is to believe that he’s hearing voices and seeing this; than it is to believe that there is something wrong with his brain.

 

He finally takes Key’s hand, and the latter beams at him. “You’re wonderful.”

 

“I’m crazy.” He looks down, at the shadows licking his feet, and turns his attention back to Key before the sight of it makes him bolt.

 

Key shakes his head. “What do your instincts tell you?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Take a deep breath, and listen to your instincts. What do they tell you?”

 

Dread falls over Taemin, as deep and dark as the night outside. He can feel the shadows at his feet now; feel them crawling up his legs and rooting him to the spot.

 

“Key…”

 

“Yeah, that’s right.” Key’s eyes are dark now, and his face, bathed in the faint light from the streetlamp outside, seems alien. It’s like he’s seeing Kibum for the first time. Taemin takes an instinctive step back, but the shadows grip onto his legs and Key’s hand tightens around his own. “You knew there was something wrong all along, and you just brushed the grave dirt aside when I called? That wasn’t very smart, was it?”

 

“Why-“

“Eurgh…always with the why, why, why. What about how?” Key’s eyes glitter and Taemin wonders how he ever mistook him for a good person, but he lets Key continue uninterrupted. “Why don’t you ask me how I pulled this off? Ask me how I pulled off that little trick with the speakers. Did you like that?”

 

Taemin cannot help shivering at the memory, and Key laughs. “I guessed as much. I moved your phone and made your headphones malfunction, but you are so unbelievably thick and didn’t make the connection between that and the speakers that I had to do the thing with the bowl and suggest ghosts to you myself.”

 

If it weren’t for Key’s iron grip on his hand, and the tenacle-like shadows snaking ever further up his legs, Taemin would have fallen to the floor. To think that he was angry at Key for refusing to believe him, when Key was the cause of it all along.

 

“I tried to help you, you know, give you a fighting chance. All those times I told you that ghosts weren’t real, that you should see a psychiatrist…if you didn’t believe, none of this would have worked. But you are just so wonderfully stubborn.”

 

“You’re not really Key, are you?”

 

Key, or the-thing-wearing-Key’s-face, laughs. “You have never met Kim Kibum. He’s been mine for a long time. I ironed your clothes and made your breakfast, darling boy. But you’re right in that I was not born Kim Kibum. I’d explain to you how old I am, but my age is not something that can be measured in human reckoning.”

 

The hand on his tightens even more, and Key tugs him forward. Taemin resists as much as he can, but he’s soon pressed flush against Key’s familiar body, and a hand snakes into his back pocket. Taemin tries to control his disgust as the hand gropes around, and closes his eyes so that he cannot see the sick smile on Key’s face.

 

“Found it,” Key says, pulling out his agate, obsidian and malachite. “Did you really think this elementary grade bullshit could fend me off? That’s so cute.”

 

The items are tossed in a corner, and the shadows around them hiss lightly.

 

“You should have met him, Taemin,” Key says, never letting go of his hand. “Kibum was the cutest little thing, so full of life and spirit. I adored him from the first moment I laid eyes on him. I mean, how could you not?” He runs a hand over his perfectly sculpted face “So beautiful.”

 

“But there’s something wrong.” He taps his chest. “Hereditary heart problem, which goes to show that you can be an eons old being and still be caught by surprise.”

 

They all know that Key’s mother has a heart problem, and that he constantly worries about her, but the medical tests that SM makes them take every year always comes back clear for Key. “If you’re so powerful, can’t you cure it?”

 

“Ooh, sass.” Key smiles. “I am curing it. I’m not a television magician, Ittemin. You can’t simply meddle with the balance of life; to extend one life, another has to be shortened.”

 

The unfairness of it all grips Taemin. This creature, whatever it is, has lived for many human lifetimes. Why was he being robbed of his chance to live? Why couldn’t it have picked any of the others? Why him?

 

“Please, please let me go,” he begs, not at all proud of the words he is about to say, but gripped with the absolute, desperate knowledge that he would do anything not to die. “I’ll help you find someone else, anyone else, please just let me go.”

 

The creature rolls its eyes, a gesture so Key that Taemin wonders whether the real Kim Kibum ever rolled his eyes that way, or whether it was always this thing in front of him. “Oh lord, here come the begging and waterworks. Spare me, please. Why would I want anyone else when I’ve worked so hard to get you to this point?”

 

“I don’t want to die,” he whimpers, feeling the shadows wrap around his waist, warm and solid like the arms of a lover. “Not like this.”

 

Key laughs and squeezes his hand. “Oh, sweetheart, you aren’t going to die at this very instant! Kibum’s got about two years left, so you’ll be kicking about for at least as long. Maybe even three years, if you watch your diet.”

 

Three years. Three years counting down the days to his impending death; if Taemin isn’t insane now, he soon will be. “Please,” he begs again.

 

Key leans in, his lips brushing lightly against Taemin’s. He’s always wondered what it would be like to kiss Key’s bow-shaped lips, but now the feel of it makes him recoil. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Key whispers. “You won’t remember any of this.”

 

There is one last plea on the tip of his tongue, but Key swallows it in a kiss. The shadows flare around them, and the world goes black.

 

**Epilogue**

 

There are leftovers of yesterday night’s Szechuan style ramyeon in the fridge somewhere. Taemin moves the cartons of chocolate milk aside and peers into various tupperwares, discovering roasted chicken breast, potato salad and last week’s kimchi before finally finding what he’s been looking for.

 

He settles at the table with his prize, and is about to take his first bite when the bowl is suddenly snatched away. Looking up, he spots Key emptying the container into the bin. 

 

“Yah, I wanted that,” he complains.

 

Key shakes his head and puts a bowl down on the table; fruit salad. “You’re an idol, you have to eat healthy food. Do you know what time I woke up to make that for you?”

 

The witty retort Taemin thought up about Key secretly scoffing the rest dies on his lips. He remembers having to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to go to school, and finding his breakfast prepared and his clothes ironed. It might have been the producer’s idea for Key to be the band’s umma, but Taemin really did love him like one.

 

“Gomawo, Key-hyung.”

 

Key ruffles his hair affectionately. “It’s nothing, Taemin-ah.”

 

The manager pokes his head into the kitchen. “Ah, there you guys are. You’re all up for the Show Champion pre-recoding at noon, and then Key’s got his musical. We’re leaving at ten, so make sure you’re all ready by then.”

 

Taemin smiles and nods around his fruit salad. Life is perfect.

 

  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Erm, comments anyone?


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